Looking for an opening suggestion in the open game

I'm a fairly new player, in the 1300s or so, and looking for a White opening recommendation starting from 1. e4 e5, this will be the first opening that I actually "learn".  Right now I generally follow through the first few moves of an Italian or Ruy but I'd like to understand the ideas better and know more about how to follow up beyond move 3-4.

fyi - I've settled on the Scandinavian Defense for black, and for the time being I'm not going to invest time in anything but the open game since it seems to form the majority of my games.  Better to put that time to tactics, etc... I think.

My requirements:

1.  Must have a really good book available, preferably from within the last 10 years.

2. Book must include good explanation of ideas (such as Move by Move series), not just long lists of moves and "white is better" at the end as many of the older books tend to be like.  I am good at understanding concepts that are explained well and can learn quickly.

3.  Should encourage tactical games, not a boring closed method of play.  An opening which includes a gambit option somewhere probably gets a minor plus.

4.  Should be fun to play!

5.  Should lead to games that favor the player who plays well, not the one that memorizes the furthest.

6.  I have limited time (5 year old son and other hobbies) to study

7.  As long as the opening "works" up to about 2000, I don't care whether it's considered viable in high level play.

8.  Ideally I'd like an opening where I get to play "my" opening a high percentage of the time rather than getting yanked out of it by black's responses.

If you can include a book recommendation along with the opening, that would be great as well.  Thanks!

Many of those books I've seen, but several I was unaware of - especially the ones that aren't out yet.

So do you think that it's a better idea to buy a White repertoire book (covering 4-5 openings for different Black responses) rather than a book on a single White opening then?

3.  Should encourage tactical games, not a boring closed method of play.  An opening which includes a gambit option somewhere probably gets a minor plus.

So you want to study half the game?  Good luck with that.  I prefer to study the entire game of chess.

I'd definitely say a repertoire book for white would be a better value.  You can sacrifice depth of analysis for breadth of coverage.  Under 2000 you don't need to memorize lines but ideas and tactical patterns instead.

Try the youtube channels of Bastiaan0741 and Kuasm. They go over a lot of different offbeat openings which are unsound but fun to play. If you're looking for only e4 e5 openings then what you're going to do when you're facing the French, Pirc, Nimzowitsch or Caro kahn, etc... defenses? If you don't have much time, you'd better stick with youtube video's, since books are way too time consuming.

My intention for now was to keep winging it against other responses, and then gradually learn openings against Sicilian, French, Caro, etc... one at a time in order of how frequently I encountered them.  e5 is currently the most common reply I see.  Is there any online database that you can query openings with a rating filter?  I'd be interested to see what opening moves are most common in say the 1200-1600 range to help establish priorities.

Thanks for the youtube suggestion, I'll check those out. I hadn't really thought about looking there but it's a good idea. 

OK, I'll work on reading reviews for some of the repertoire books then.  Is there any one in particular that does a superior job with the explainations?

I'm a new player and this is a starting point, not the entire journey.  I thought it was pretty common advice that beginners start out with open games emphasizing tactics before learning about positional play.

That is good advice, but how you worded it isnt.  Youre learning and already youre labeling closed play.  

You're right - it was a poor choice of words on my part.  Mainly I was just trying to follow the advice I've been reading that beginners should work on open tactical positions first.  Without knowing a lot more about positional play, I an not yet equipped to say whether it is more or less interesting.

No problem, so lets move on :-)

The advantage with open positions for abeginners is the ability to learn tactics.  I wouldnt worry about gambits this early.  Start with good solid 1.e4 openings like the Ruy Lopez, the Italian Game, 3 Knights, 4 Knights, the Scotch.  

Study those openings, learn the ideas behind them, and the basic ideas of the pawn structures.  Combine that with studying tactiics.

Unfortunately, there are few opening books geared towards players under intermediate level, and with explanations.

I think a good choice for you would be the King's gambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4) as it meets most of your criteriae and is fun to play. However, I struggle to recommend a book with really good explanations geared at your level - you may consider this one though... : http://www.amazon.com/Fascinating-Kings-Gambit-Thomas-Johansson/dp/1412046475

If you're ready to consider a DVD, then this is probably a good choice :

https://shop.chessbase.com/en/products/williams_kings_gambit_vol1

I confess that I don't know much about the DVD options, so I'll have to look into that as well.  The price seems roughly comparable to a book so it probably is a viable option.  However, it appears that this only runs on Windows?  If so, that's not going to work as I'm running OSX (Mac) here.

Currently I'm doing tactics puzzles on chesstempo.com to practice tactics.  Can you suggest a book with good beginner explanations of the Italian, 3-4 Knights (I'm assuming 3 Knights is when Black doesn't play along?), or Scotch?  King's Gambit would be acceptable too if that seems like a good choice for a beginner.  I'm still wary of Ruy Lopez for two reasons:

1.  I have seen multiple references saying it has too much theory for a beginner (although I have also heard claims that there are side lines which are simpler)

2.  It seems massively popular, which I suspect means that most people are accustomed to it and already know what to do against it

If this reasoning seems incorrect though, I'm open to enlightenment :)

Here are the books I found on each that look like possibilities:

Four Knights: Move by Move (Lackdawala)

Italian Game & Evans Gambit (Pinski)

Starting Out: The Scotch Game (Emms)

King's Gambit (Shaw)

Ruy Lopez: Move by Move (McDonald)

But, I have a hard time judging what level each book is intended for.  It seems strange to me how few books there are about the Italian when chessopenings.com claims that it's the 2nd most popular e4 opening behind the Ruy.  The older books (Emms and Pinski) seem to have less detailed explanations in them, at least judging from the Amazon "Look Inside" samples.

Shaw's book is the most recent on the King's Gambit, but it may be a bit too much for you.

You can find an excerpt there :

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/124/the_kings_gambit_by_john_shaw/

The Ruy Lopez Move By Move by Neil McDonald.

• Lots of fun kingside attacks for White.  
• It's totally sound, so not like you'll have to learn something new once you get to say, 1700.  Even GMs play it!
• As you already mention, the Move by Move series is excellent for learning an opening for the first time.
• It was written in the last 10 years as you request (September 2011)
• Many games end up with a high ratio of tactics, but no opening is going to guarantee a tactical game every time!  For example, the Old Steinitz variation (3...d6) is very positional in nature, but not very good for Black if White knows what he's doing!  It's still not like you are trying to play the Colle Koltanowski!
• There is no such thing as "My Opening".  The opening is always decided by both players.  If you play 1.e4, you can't guarantee 1...e5 even though that's what you are studying right now.  If you respond 2.Nf3, you still don't have "your opening", Black can play 2...d6, which is a Philidor, 2...f5, which is a Latvian, 2...Nf6, which can lead to a Petroff, Three Knights Game, or Four Knights Game (see, even there, no guarantee what opening it will be), or 2...Nc6, which can be Italian, Scotch, Ruy Lopez, etc.  This is no different than any other option.  Against 2.Nc3 Black has multiple responses, against 2.f4?! Black has multiple responses (and multiple VERY GOOD responses I might add in this case), etc.
• I myself own and have read a good chunk of the book, and I have read many of McDonald's other opening books.  He no chump like Eric Schiller!

The Move By Move books are very good.  Yes the Ruy is theory intensive, but dont let that overwhelm you.  We all started as beginners :-)  Follow opening principles and you will be fine.  

A review of the Lopez book (originally left out of my above list) can be seen at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627022042/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen153.pdf

The Four Knights: Move by Move by Cyrus Lakdawala (2012) is reviewed at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627104938/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen159.pdf

Italian Game and Evans Gambit by Jan Pinski (2005) is reviewed at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140626192818/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen78.pdf

Starting Out: The Scotch Game by John Emms (2005) is reviewed at:

https://web.archive.org/web/20140627061119/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen82.pdf

The King’s Gambit by John Shaw is reviewed at:

http://www.chessvibes.com/?q=review-the-king%E2%80%99s-gambit

Because of the need to cram a lot into one book, repertoire books are often not easy reading. I suspect that, for many, the best use of a repertoire book is primarily as a source of ideas for openings to explore elsewhere. If you really are willing to focus on 1 e4 e5 for now, something like one of these books may be the best option.

I had originally glossed over the Johansson book on the King's Gambit because the reviews on Amazon seemed rather poor with quite a few "1"s.  I didn't actually READ them at first though.  As it turns out, the reviews for the *book* are quite good, the reviews which rated it a "1" were all complaining about the poor quality of the Kindle conversion, not the content.  After examining the "Look Inside" feature, I see their point - it looks like someone scanned in a photocopy of a photocopy of the original book :(